Let the ‘how’ lead your ‘what’ in life.

I used to focus on everything external.

A better home someday.

I step up in my career.

A new bike.

Reaching, grasping, yearning for my life to always blossom from the external world.

You work hard, you get a promotion. Ok am I happier?

You make more money and buy a fancy home. Ok am I happier now?

You purchase that fancy new car. Ok am I happier now?

The neverending churn of steering our lives externally.

We focus so much on the what.

Money. Promotion. New relationship. Cars. Homes. Things.

But what I have deeply come to learn is that life does not blossom from ‘out there,’ from the external world.

It blossoms from within.

How you feel, how you ‘are,’ how you ‘be,’ is just as important if not sometimes more important than the what.

If you are driving that new car, but you still feel lonely, you still feel sad, you still feel like something is missing.

That’s because the ‘external what’ will never truly fulfill you.

The ‘how’ we are in life is what’s most important.

Our society forgets this. We have all forgotten this.

But it’s time to remember.

How you show up in this world is so important. And how you feel is so important.

When we shift to focusing on the how–how am I feeling. That’s where the juice is. That’s where the meat of life is.

I will give an example from my own life.

I always wanted to be in marketing. My professional career started in the arena of public relations, but marketing always seemed like they made more of the big decisions and had more impact on the business. They ran cool campaigns and drove so much of our brand, voice and tone. I wanted to be part of this department. I thought that’s ‘what’ I wanted.

So low and behold, I kept getting promoted. And eventually I ended up in a Director of Marketing role. And when I was finally there, it was not what I wanted at all. My how was so deeply and utterly off. I was over-worked, stressed, living to work–not living to live.

I was too focused on the external wants versus my internal how.

You are probably asking, what the heck do you mean by focusing on the ‘how’?

I mean what state are you in and how are you going about your life.

Are you at peace, do you feel calm, are you happy, do you feel free, do you feel love, do you flow into creative expression?

Or are you afraid, are you tight, are you stressed, are you anxious, are you sad, are you lonely, are you tired, are you drained?

That is the ‘how.’

How am I ‘being’ each day? How am I showing up? What state am I in when I am doing things?

No external ‘what’ no matter how hard you try, will ever truly shift your ‘how.’

That can only come from within. From going within. From bringing awareness to yourself and your state of being. Shining a light in the cracks and the pieces of yourself that you don’t like. Being really, really honest with yourself. And then surrendering to the light within you. And letting it transform and transcend. (This is a very simple way of describing the trajectory of True Growth and from my own experiences this can be hard and quite the journey so I don’t want to minimize this process here. But I am going to move on as that’s not what this article is about).

How we show up is so important.

How we ‘be’ in this world is so important.

And what’s beautiful about it is that the ‘how’ points us towards embodying a life of joy, and peace, and love, and bounty, and beauty.

In my life now, I embody so much more of the ‘how’ and let my life unfold from there.

For example (and this is a very silly and minute example, so give me grace here), we moved to a new home and I wanted to purchase a new couch for our living room. But the alignment wasn’t there. The flow wasn’t there. I was too focused on the ‘what,’ i.e. a new couch. But all I really wanted at the core of this was to feel super comfortable, cozy and deeply content in our home. So I stopped looking for a new couch and instead pivoted towards focusing on that feeling and I know that as we continuously flow through life, this feeling of being comfy and cozy in our home will continuously unfold on its own. No need for me to force the external. It will just naturally fall into place in time as I hold this feeling of comfort and coziness.

That is living from the ‘how.’

If you want a different life. First narrow in on your ‘how’ and your values.

How do you want to feel? How do you want to operate each day? How do you want to spend your time? No need to focus on the ‘what.’ Align to the truth of your ‘how’ and your values.

For example, so many people want a different job.

So what would one typically do in this situation? They would first go towards all things external. Start job searching online. Network. Update their LinkedIN profile. Narrow down what type of job they want–something in IT, or HR manager, or communications specialist, etc.

I am saying stop. Take the step before this.

Focus on how you want to feel at your new job. Focus on how you want your day to look like. Focus on what you value internally.

So for example you might value more work-life balance, and you might want more time to spend with your kids, and you want to feel calm and at peace at your new job. Or you want to be more creative. Or you want to feel more freedom.

Write down what you value. Write down how you want to feel. How you want to ‘be’ each day. How you want your day to look like.

Maybe that is helping others. Or empowering others through leadership. You want that really amazing feeling of helping other employees. That’s your ‘how.’

Whatever it might be–focus on that.

And then the external ‘what,’ the new job will unfold in time. And could even be something that you least expected. Stay open and let the impossible become the possible. Because when you operate from this place–anything is possible. Don’t limit yourself. Anything can be brought into the realm of possibility.

So forget how much our society focuses on the ‘what.’ Let’s start focusing more on the ‘how.’

Afterall, the ‘how’ is the journey. And that’s what we are all on–a journey!

I’ll see you in the realm of the ‘how!’